Twitter's TweetDeck application hacked by tweets containing code

NEW YORK -- A tweet containing computer code has propagated itself through Twitter by taking advantage of a security flaw in the company's TweetDeck application.

In response, San Francisco-based Twitter shut down the application's access to tweets for about an hour Wednesday while fixing the problem.

The tweet was automatically "retweeted," or sent out again, when processed by TweetDeck, a computer application for Twitter's power users. Affected tweeters saw pop-up windows on their screens. The tweet was retweeted tens of thousands of times.

Twitter initially told TweetDeck users to log out and log back in. When that proved ineffective, it shut down the application's access to tweets.

It's not the first time tweets containing JavaScript code have self-propagated through security holes in Twitter. The last major outbreak was in 2010.